


Jeremiad: After the End

by Firefury_Amahira



Series: The Ultimate Saga [4]
Category: Danny Phantom
Genre: Angst and Humor, Comedy, Episode: s02e08-09 The Ultimate Enemy, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Gen, Post-Apocalypse, Tragedy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-12
Updated: 2016-08-12
Packaged: 2018-08-08 09:48:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 12,909
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7752820
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Firefury_Amahira/pseuds/Firefury_Amahira
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>So the day has been saved, the bad guy gone for good. That doesn't change the fact that Amity Park is still in ruins, or that Valerie, the remnants of her Ghost Patrol forces, and the other survivors still have plenty of work cut out for themselves. If humanity is good at one thing, it's stubbornly getting back up and rebuilding after having been knocked down.</p><p>Then there's the ghosts...</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Part One: The Underground

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: I do not own Danny Phantom. Butch Hartman does. I would never dream of making money off his work, this is but one fanatic's homage. So please don't sic the rabid lawyer hordes upon me, there's not much for them to sue out of me.
> 
> In the original FFN run of the saga, these three short stories were tacked on as three epilogue chapters to Jeremiad, the first story of the series. I've decided here to place it as a separate entry to maintain the chronological order that the stories were written in, since After the End was written after I had finished Benediction, but before the fourth and final story Indemnification. These chapters serve as a sort of lighter, fluffier mini-arc to bridge the gap in the future timeline between the ending of Jeremiad/Anathema and where events pick back up in Indemnification.

**Part One: The Underground**  
"Silent voices down from below  
Rising up through the ice and the snow  
Ancient angers cast upon all  
Through the land of the slain"  
_-"Revelations" - Dragonforce_

            I shielded my eyes against the afternoon sun as I made my way over the New City toward the Outlands on a routine patrol. Funny how quickly a group of people will assign new names to an altered landscape. What used to simply be the wastelands, the ruins of Amity Park had lost their nameless terror. Sure, the ruins were still dangerous, but now those dangers were mundane in nature rather than ghostly. The vast field of destruction was now simply the Outlands, the areas of the old city that had yet to be reclaimed.

            Granted, the New City, or New Amity depending on who you asked, was still hardly what I would call a "city." In the past few months since I returned from my last surprising trip to Wisconsin, the survivors had managed to civilize only a few square miles. More of a village than a city, and barely that much. Still, to call it a city gave things a more familiar sense to them, I suppose. We all needed some semblance of "normal" after the past several months following that awful day.

            More survivors were trickling in day by day, more than I had thought could possibly have survived Phantom's final and most deadly rampage. It seems that the emergency system worked better than I had figured; many survivors had taken refuge in the underground complex that had been the city's industrial sector. In fact, many of the survivors were still living out of those warrens, moving into surface housing slowly as new dwellings were gradually raised.

            Three months later, and not everyone even knew that Phantom was gone. That was one of the reasons for my patrol route. The remnants of the Amity Park Ghost Patrol had become the workhorses of the New City. We were charged with finding water sources, food, salvageable materials, and locating survivors who were still in hiding. _Especially_ survivors still in hiding. With the ghost no longer a threat, making sure people were safe from the more mundane hazards of sinkholes, collapsing buildings, and assorted potentially toxic debris took a new urgency.

            The "near" Outlands were particularly dangerous, since the underground manufacturing complex lay beneath the ruins right up to the perimeter of the now-broken anti-ghost shield. There was a lot of very valid concern about massive collapses due to the damage on the surface. So far however, the area beneath the New City seemed to be holding firm. In the Outlands though.... the danger was more apparent, great gaping holes ripped in the earth where the underground complex had collapsed; toppled skyscrapers swallowed by sinkholes several thousand feet deep.

            In all fairness though, the "old" Outlands were almost as dangerous, but for different reasons. First and foremost being the miles and miles of unstable debris between the farthest reaches of the old city and civilization. Little was known about what lay so far from the safety of the New City. Thugs or bandits, taking cues from old post-Apocalypse flicks; decade-old toxic spills; heck, possibly even other ghosts.

            I reached for my binoculars when I spotted a plume of dust in the distance, not too far from the remains of one of the shield towers. Tower Twelve, if I remembered correctly. Such plumes weren't uncommon, a grey or brown cloud of dust would waft skyward whenever a large chunk of the ruins settled. Still, it was worth investigating, as it was possible there were people hiding in that area.

            "HQ, this is Valerie." I spoke into my wristband, steering my oft-abused jet sled toward the tower. "I'm investigating activity in the near Outlands. Looks like a building co-"

            My report died on my lips as I watched the nearly skeletal remains of the shield tower cant over, the structure steadily gaining momentum until it slammed to earth and raised a second, much larger dust cloud. Even from my location perhaps a mile off, the shriek of steel and abused concrete was clear.

            "Valerie? What is it?" A voice crackled over my wristband. "A building what?"

            "Sorry." I replied, shaking off my surprise at the ongoing destruction Phantom had brought. "One of the old towers collapsed. I think it was number twelve. I'm going to go check for survivors now. Valerie out."

            HQ responded with a quick affirmative as I blasted off toward the wreckage. There wasn't much of a breeze that day, the disturbed dust settling slowly over the immediate area or hanging in the air like a gritty fog. I squinted against the stuff, tying a rag I kept handy for such situations around my nose and mouth. It was times like that I wish my newer suit had a hood and visor like my first set of ghost hunting gear did.

            The damage as I flew over the scene was impressive, even by the standards of the wastelands. The tower had fallen over entirely, smashing three other collapsed buildings into an unrecognizable mass of concrete and steel beneath its bulk. More than that, I realized, flying lower.

            The tower hadn't failed... the foundation it was _built_ on had. The ground beneath the tower had clearly failed to hold the weight of the structure, and it had gone over, ripping a gaping hole into the underground complex. I sent my sled even lower to investigate and found fully a third of the tower's uppermost skeleton had plunged into the sinkhole, along with a veritable mountain of debris.

            "HQ, confirming tower twelve has gone down, and it's opened a new entrance to the Underground." I reported over the comm. "I think it's a section we haven't been able to reach before, either."

            There was a moment of silence before I received a reply, surprisingly from Paulina. She was usually too busy coordinating the survivors to handle much in the way of Patrol duties.

            "A new area?" The Latina inquired. "If it was anybody else, I'd say wait for backup. But do you think you can check it out now? There could still be people hiding out down there!"

            _Like you read my mind._ I mused to myself before replying. "Sure thing. I'll keep you guys posted on what I find."

            To be fair, I didn't expect to find much underground this far out, right at the border of the old shield. Few people went too near that boundary before the shield fell, and I simply could not imagine anyone wanting to try and seek shelter beneath the generators once Phantom had broken through.

            Though I'm _hardly_ a good judge of what a refugee might do, considering my reaction was insanity and a single-minded obsession with destroying Phantom that nearly got me killed a few dozen times over. It _would_ have gotten me killed, had that freakish time travel stuff never happened that brought Danny from the past ten years forward in time. Seeing him, Sam, and Tucker all alive had been the slap upside the head I'd direly needed.

            I approached the giant tear in the ground, cupping my hands to my rag-covered mouth and shouting into the dark crevasse.

            "Hello! Is there anyone down there?" I listened, first hearing my call echo back to me from down there, then silence.

            _Well, no helping it, I'll have to go down there myself._ I frowned as I slipped into the cavern.

            To be perfectly honest, I hated going into the Underground, though I'm not claustrophobic. It wasn't too bad where there were people living, but the complex was vast, dangerous, and downright creepy in places, even to someone who had seen the horrors I've seen. Maybe it was the ambience; very little light from holes in the ceiling, with debris everywhere and the musk of stale air and decay. It was certainly enough like the setting of some horror movie to set a person's nerves on edge.

            I followed the line carved by the fallen tower, clicking on a flashlight as the daylight from above faded to a general murk. It was cold underground, and impossibly silent. I could make some crack about the silence of the grave, but it all fairness there was a very real chance it _was_ someone's grave. A great many someones, even. We'd found that in the Underground, far more than I liked to think about. Areas where clearly a group of survivors had hidden, only to be cut off from the surface by collapses or buried; cut off from food and water and left to starve, or cut off from fresh air and quickly suffocated.

            I climbed off my jet sled, tucking it under one arm as I proceeded deeper into the cavern, sweeping my little light back and forth in search of signs of life or dangers lurking in the dark. There was nothing to see except decrepit equipment and collapsed rubble, perhaps the area was truly deserted?

            I stopped when I heard a faint sound from deeper in the cave. Without my footfalls obscuring the sound, I could hear it again. It wasn't the sound of still-functioning industrial equipment; it was too irregular and not metallic enough to be that. It didn't sound like settling debris either; the sound was far too breathy to be concrete and steel sliding against one another. Which meant one thing: there _was_ someone, or something down there.

            "Hey, if you can hear me, please respond!" I called into the murk, maneuvering through the passageway to follow the faint sound.

            As I progressed I found more collapses; older ones, given the settled dust and weather damage. Entire buildings from the surface had ended up mangled heaps of rubble down in the Underground. I wrinkled my nose through my rag; the stink was steadily worse as well. Old machine oil, stale air, the stink of rust and... a faint coppery smell. I fought down the urge to be ill at that smell, sliding one of my guns to the ready position.

            The stink wasn't fresh, it had that same aged quality to it. If there was anything down there, it had been down there for awhile. I had a bad feeling that if there was something, that it wasn't human. I studied the facade of a building that had fallen sideways into the complex, and realized it was from outside the shield perimeter. There was only one way for an entire building from outside the shield to get into the Underground within that perimeter.

            _More of Phantom's handiwork from trying to break the shield before he got that new power._

So it was an older building, a chunk of solid debris that the ghost had picked up and flung through the barrier. Probably it had been subsequently buried in Phantom's final rampage, and eventually brought into the Underground by a ceiling collapse. So any bodies in that mound of broken building could have been trapped anywhere from a few years to a few months. I wouldn't find any survivors. Remnants, perhaps; but no survivors.

            "Are there any ghosts in the area?" I called out, pulling an ecto-detector out of my pack. "You better show yourselves if there are!"

            The device I was holding started beeping almost immediately, signaling the presence of a specter. A thin form materialized ahead, the dim glow it gave off sufficient to locate it beyond the reach of my flashlight. Given the only known remaining ghost portal at the time was the one Vlad's got in Wisconsin, any ghosts found in Amity Park had to have either come from Vlad's, or occurred in the city itself: victims of Phantom who could not rest easily.

            The ghost's appearance was vaguely human, its armor bearing distant relation to the Patrol's uniforms. The guns it had aimed at me certainly looked like outdated standard-issue Patrol firearms. So it was a ghost, most likely of a Patrol member who'd been killed a few years back; probably in Phantom's third rampage when we fired up the shield for the first time. All that remained was determining if it was hostile or just jumpy.

            "Hey, easy. Put the guns down." I pocketed my gun in an attempt at placating the spook, who said nothing. "We're both Patrollers, right?"

            Its unblinking red gaze was the only response as I took a cautious step forward. If I could identify who it was, there was a good chance the ghost could be talked into cooperating with the Patrol. Ever since my last trip to the Ghost Zone, with the revelation that both Sam and Tucker existed now as ghosts, along with Danny's human half, I'd greatly tempered my responses to ghosts in general. I still didn't _like_ a great many of them, but I no longer saw them simply as random collections of pure evil. Random, certainly. But not automatically evil.

            "Phantom's gone, you know." I told it, trying to keep how wary I was from showing. "For about four months now, and he'll never be back."

            "Gone?" The thing finally spoke, its voice somewhere between a moan and a jagged whisper. "Gone? _GONE?_ "

            I stopped, one hand going back to my pocketed gun. That fixation was not a good sign. Ghosts that had that sort of an irrational obsession weren't fully-formed ghosts, if what Sam had told me was true. Fully formed ghosts like her or Tucker, they were fully rational beings despite their particular obsessions. Irrational ghosts weren't true ghosts, but rather the deceased's malevolence pumped up on ectoplasm; a fixation given form.

            " ** _GONE?_** No!" It shrieked, opening fire on me in a sudden frenzy.

            I spat a curse and tumbled out of the way, narrowly avoiding a flurry of pink beams that I could hear plowing into the debris all around. The cave was _not_ a good place to try and fight a crazed ghost. There simply was not enough room in the cramped Underground to effectively fight, and that was assuming the fighting didn't flat-out bring the roof down first.

            I turned tail and ran for the exit, ducking and weaving to avoid attacks from behind me. There was no doubt in my mind the ghost was the remains of one of the Patrol members; and that Phantom was its particular obsession, given how poorly it reacted to learning that he was gone for good. Regardless of who it had once been however; now the spook was a clear and present danger to the survivors, and as such needed to be dealt with. Permanently. To do that, I needed the advantage of the open sky and my jet sled.

            "HQ, this is Valerie!" I shouted into my wristband as I reached my sled and jumped aboard. "Hostiles in the Underground near Tower Twelve. Confirmed presence of one hostile ghost, possibly more! Engaging as soon as I'm out of the tunnels!"

            If there was a reply, I didn't hear it over the noise of gunfire behind me. It was a good thing I found the spook and not one of the others; I was the most experienced and undeniably best sled pilot in the Patrol. It would have been suicide for anyone else to try and fly out of that tunnel at full throttle. As it was, I had more than a few close calls from falling debris as I powered through the air towards daylight and safety. I readied my weapons as I fled; a smaller rifle rather than my larger cannon, thoughts racing to plot a course of action while reflexively evading the enraged specter behind me.

            I risked a glance behind me as I burst into the late afternoon sky and nearly gasped. The ghost had some sort of jet sled-style device strapped across its back, like a makeshift jetpack; and the spook was far too close for comfort. So I dovetailed my sled to one side and killed the throttle; the ghost shot past me, too slow to anticipate the maneuver and enabling me to take a clean shot at its backside.

            It's a strange feeling, that instant the target lines up in the sights. Time almost seems to slow down, and there's a sudden mental calm right before pulling the trigger. No emotion, not even hate or fear, or even a perverse sort of pleasure in that instant as the trigger is pulled. I have to wonder if it’s like that for the other Patrol members, or if it's a lingering fragment of my own bout with madness.

            My shot struck home, and with a pained shriek the ghost was quickly destroyed. Ghosts like that were seldom very powerful; though they were often more violent than "true" ghosts, they lacked the completeness that could withstand more than a blast or two. The "true" ghosts could take a pounding, and heal; almost like an ectoplasmic parody of actual life. These crazed specters couldn't do much more than maintain their form and lash out at whatever happened to set them off.

            I waited, weapon ready in case anything else had crawled out of hiding, listening to the wind. After several minutes, I assumed the one spook had been the only thing down there, and called it in to headquarters. Several airborne specks closing in on my position broke off and returned to their normal routes; the Patrollers who had no doubt been scrambled to respond to my alarm. I maintained my post for several more minutes before resuming my own patrol, mood sour.

            I used to take such pleasure in hunting ghosts, all those years ago. Now it was... just a job, a duty I had to fulfill; ever since that dark day more than ten years ago when I had reluctantly accepted the task of stopping Phantom during his first rampage. I shot a glance back toward the wreckage of Tower Twelve. That ghost _was_ one of my comrades from those dark days; well, had been, at any rate. I never found out who it had been, probably for the best; given I knew the names and faces of every member who served on the Patrol during that long decade.

            I shivered as the evening progressed, the air starting to turn chill as I started for home. That singleminded hatred for Phantom; that all-consuming desire to destroy him regardless of who or what got hurt in the process. That could have been _me_ , had the circumstances been different. I doubt I would have slept easily had Phantom ever managed to carry out those threats on my life. It could have been me haunting the Outlands, howling incoherent rage and lashing out at anything that came near.

            But that _wasn't_ me, I had to remember. I'd left that madness behind me, it disappeared the instant Danny-from-the-past and his friends had shown up and been menaced by Phantom. I'd come a long way since, learning tolerance and leaving my old animosity toward ghosts behind. They weren't _all_ bad, certainly none of the "true" ghosts were necessarily evil. They were as diverse as any living race, each with individual emotions, goals, obsessions, hobbies, and peeves. They could be reasoned with, bribed, threatened, and argued with; it was possible to cooperate with them to the benefit of both sides.

            Heck, that was how Vlad had been able to boss Skulker and Technus around even without any powers of his own. The old geezer had things the ghosts needed, they had simply bartered to a mutually agreeable exchange of services for goods. Even ten years ago before I knew any better, when Danny had first disappeared; I had struck a bargain with Skulker, at a time I still despised all ghosts.

            Amity Park and the Ghost Zone both had suffered dearly thanks to Phantom. Both had been laid to waste, it was truly impossible to know how many deaths... and, well, _after_ deaths? there had been. Now efforts at returning to normal were underway in both worlds. In Amity Park, the efforts were being led by me and Paulina; in the Ghost Zone, apparently Tucker and Dora Mattingly were organizing Ghost Zone society.

            _Cooperation..._ A thought hit me as I returned to headquarters for the night. I'd have to get back to Wisconsin sometime and go pay the ghosts a visit...


	2. Home Again

**Part Two: Home Again**  
"So here's to the good times, here's to the bad  
Here's to the memories that we all had  
Here's to tomorrow, let yesterday pass us by"  
_-"Starting All Over Again" - Bon Jovi_ **  
**

            "Ugh, were all those speeches really _necessary_?" I griped to no one in particular as I stood in the elevator.

            "Not really, but it made people feel better." Paulina replied to my rhetorical question.

            I shrugged. It had been a long day, celebrating the dedication of several new buildings. With Phantom gone for good, Vlad Masters had come out of hiding; and to my surprise the old geezer still had enough of his fortunes left to invest in rebuilding Amity Park. We still had a long, long way to go to rebuild the city, but thanks to him we now had something resembling a central government again.

            First was the new government building. Paulina was still recognized as the city's unofficial mayor, and I had little doubt that the position would become official. She had been the one to organize the survivors, she had taken on the task of helping the masses get on their collective feet again. Most of the offices were empty or stored various goods rather than civil servants, but in due time the building would serve as a proper administrative center for the city instead of an emergency coordination headquarters.

            Vlad had also put up the funds for an education complex since it had been deemed almost unanimously vital to get the children back into a "normal" routine. Sure, all the adults had been traumatized by the siege and then the destruction of literally _everything_ , but we could cope better. The little kids were... well, they were little kids! The adults could at least understand most of what happened, but the kids didn't know. They couldn't understand why that ghost was bent on hurting people; why people they knew and cared for had been killed; why they had been forced to endure such terror.

            In the same vein, it had been deemed vital to get a new hospital facility built and staffed. That was just common sense. Most of the time when we found people in the ruins, anybody buried in the rubble was already dead; but there were plenty of survivors who had crippling injuries that needed better treatment than we could give them out in the ruins. In a display of generosity that was very nearly out of character, Masters had ponied up the cash not only to build the new hospital; but to bring in doctors and nurses and specialists to augment those medical personnel who had survived the siege itself.

            Last of all, there was the building we were standing in. I had been surprised, but the survivors had all but demanded a new headquarters for the Amity Park Ghost Patrol. My best guess is everyone was so conditioned to fear ghosts that they felt they needed a specific task force to protect them from the otherworldly threat. I figured that with Phantom gone, we didn't really need a full force anymore, but I was outvoted.

            I had to hand it to Vlad; the new building was far more ideal for the Patrol's purpose than FentonWorks had been before. Granted, the Patrol's mission had expanded quite a bit since those days as well. We were serving the quadruple-roles of police force, anti-ghost defense, ghost research, _and_ search and rescue; and the new headquarters was built to serve as Patrol headquarters, military barracks, research lab and armory. While nobody could pinpoint who had started it, the building had already earned itself the apparently fond nickname of "FentonWorks II."

            "So, what did you want to talk to me about after all the pomp?" I glanced over at Paulina as we stepped off the elevator on the fourth floor of the building and headed toward my new apartment.

            "Well, you remember when you told me about what _really_ happened to Danny?" The Latina asked.

            I nodded absently while unlocking the door. Other than Vlad, Paulina and I were the only people still living who knew the truth about Phantom; the fate of Danny Fenton and how it all went back to the CAT. I don't think Vlad knew about Sam and Tucker though, or about Danny's existence in the Ghost Zone. That was a revelation shared only between me and Paulina.

            We both walked into my sparse apartment and I shut the door. It was just simply _weird_ to think of it as 'home', after the six months roughing it in the wastelands. After so long without any promise of safety, I had a hard time convincing myself that I was truly secure within those walls. The apartments for the Patrol's ranking personnel weren't anything fancy, but after months of having nothing, it was a luxury.

            "Well, the new lab has a portal..." Paulina trailed off, looking a bit anxious about whatever she was getting at. "... And you said you wanted to talk to some of the ghosts anyway-"

            "And you want to go into the Ghost Zone and see him?" I quirked an eyebrow. "He's probably hooked up with Sam by now, you know."

            "I always knew those lovebirds would get together." Paulina agreed before looking sheepish. "I just feel bad, you know? I treated him pretty badly our freshman year of high school, and I never got the chance to apologize, since he was already dead by the time I figured out the truth."

            I considered Paulina's request. It was true I wouldn't mind seeing Danny and the others again, and I certainly couldn't complain about how any of the ghosts had acted toward me at that spooky party; but the idea of plunging right into the Ghost Zone was at best totally nuts. I was moderately confident I could find my way from Vlad's portal in Wisconsin to Dora's castle, but that would probably be all of no use in trying to get anywhere from the Patrol's new portal.

            On the other hand, when I had ever been one to listen completely to common sense?

            "My only concern is how would we even _find_ Danny in there? I had a guide to that party, remember."

            "It's really that big?" Paulina raised an eyebrow. "I didn't get to see much of it when the entire town got pulled in."

            "It's massive." I nodded, recalling all too well the vast expanse of the Ghost Zone from my handful of times in it. "In all directions, and without much in the way of landmarks. Just... islands occasionally. And doors. I don't think they hold fixed positions, either."

            "Maybe we could ask a ghost for directions?" Paulina suggested, which momentarily stopped me dead in my tracks.

            _Why didn't I think of that?_

            "That.... could work." I admitted slowly. "Assuming we find a ghost that knows where to go, and is willing to give us the directions."

            "And if we don't?" Paulina raised an eyebrow.

            "If we don't, be prepared for a fight." I crossed my arms. "We can set some sort of beacon on the inside of the portal, so at least if we get lost we can follow that back."

            "So we're going to do it, then?" Paulina grinned slightly.

            "Looks that way."

\---

            We decided the best time to attempt the expedition was at night once everyone else was asleep a few days later. No matter how cautious we would be, it was obvious that no one would appreciate the city's number one ghost hunter _and_ its unofficial mayor both taking what would seem to be a reckless risk. Though to be fair, running into the Ghost Zone with little more than a vague plan _was_ pretty reckless.

            I had procured a homing beacon and already installed it just inside the Ghost Zone side of the portal the night prior, and I was waiting in the basement laboratory with my new jet sled when Paulina came down the stairwell.

            "You're sure you want to go through with this?" I asked one more time as I set the sled down and hopped on it.

            "Having second thoughts, Valerie?" Paulina jibed, though I knew from her tone she didn't mean the barb.

            We did a final weapons and equipment check; we weren't looking for a fight in the Ghost Zone, but it would be pure stupidity not to be prepared in case a fight found _us_. I had a new ecto-rifle with an attached grenade launcher and a compact autocannon; Paulina had a larger beam gun and a new bazooka. The Patrol certainly had no complaints about the newest equipment Vlad had provided. It certainly beat the gear we'd used since the siege; equipment that had well exceeded its planned life expectancy despite poor maintenance after the shield fell.

            "Then let's go, before anyone misses us." I powered my sled up, pleased with the soft purr of its engines idling. "And remember, if we haven't got a lead in two hours, we head back to the portal."

            "Got it." Paulina agreed, her own sled lifting a few inches off the ground. "Besides, if we don't find them tonight, we can always try again!"

            I punched in the code to open the portal, shielding my eyes briefly against the vivid green light as the vortex was revealed. We would have to leave the portal wide open while we were away, but to be honest I wasn't overly worried. Back in the day, the Fentons had left their portal wide open for occasionally days at a stretch, and there had been no ghostly catastrophe. Unlike back then, the portal was guarded not just by a half-ghost teen who was figuring things out as he went along; it was guarded by an entire trained and heavily armed force.

            "Here goes nothing..." I muttered under my breath as we flew right through the whirling mass of green light.

            I called a halt as soon as we were on the other side. Paulina sat down heavily on her sled, simply gaping with eyes wide and jaw hanging open at our surroundings. Meanwhile, I double-checked to make sure our tracking beacon was fixed firmly to the portal's frame. It was odd how the portal's framework seemed to be duplicated on the Ghost Zone side of the warp. Vlad's portal wasn't like that, though his was a much older model.

            "It-it's... so-!" Paulina gaped, apparently unable to form a coherent sentence just yet as she gestured at a handful of doors floating in the aether.

            "Big? Empty?" I supplied my own descriptions to complete her thought. "Well, the beacon's set."

            I surveyed our immediate surroundings, raising an eyebrow at a strangely familiar octagonal door frame some distance off. If distance in the Ghost Zone at all matched anything in the real world, that defunct gateway could only be the Ghost Zone side of the Fentons' original portal. I deemed it strange but of little importance; I didn't know my way to anything in the Ghost Zone from the old FentonWorks portal.

            It took Paulina a few more minutes to fully shake off her initial shock; and while I was impatient to get going, I couldn't blame her for her reaction. There's certainly no small sense of vertigo from being surrounded by empty space in all directions. Even I felt a little dizzy despite my best efforts.

            "Where should we go?" Paulina squeaked once she could form a sentence again.

            "Pick a direction." I remarked dryly. "We've got no leads yet, after all."

            "Might as well go straight out, I guess." Paulina gestured ahead of our current position.

            "Sounds good." I nodded. "Stay sharp for ghosts, our radars are basically useless in here."

            For a place supposedly full of ghosts, the first hour of our exploration was remarkably uneventful. I think we spotted all of two ghosts; both apparently harmless animals that had no interest in the two humans flying past. We passed some interesting scenery; islands supporting a variety of terrain, huge clouds of rocky debris that looked to me like the end of an explosion.

            _Probably Phantom's handiwork._ I assumed. Gravity in the Ghost Zone seemed to be a largely voluntary thing, so it would make sense for the remnants of a big explosion to spread out in all directions, leaving a huge cloud of pulverized debris hanging roughly in the vicinity of whatever had exploded.

            To my dismay and Paulina's as well, our designated two hours ran out; and we were none the wiser as to the whereabouts of Danny. We'd had to drive off a couple of hostile spooks, an eel and some sort of ghost shark, but otherwise we'd found nothing to help track down anyone familiar. A shame, but I had been hoping we'd run into Skulker and Technus, or perhaps Dora Mattingly. If we had been really lucky, we might have found Danny, Sam, or Tucker themselves.

            With nothing to show for it, we started back to the portal when a low voice sounded suddenly from right behind us.

            "Beware..."

            Paulina yelped and spun with her weapon ready; but I just rolled my eyes, recognizing the line, even though the voice was still not entirely familiar. I turned around at a more leisurely pace, recognizing the ghost that had come up behind us from that party a few months back. He looked far more intimidating than he had in years past; he stood taller and looked far more like the stereotypical grizzled dock worker he had resembled only in caricature years ago.

            "Hey, Box Ghost." I kept my weapon down and non-threatening. "What's up?"

            My reaction seemed to catch the generally dim-witted ghost by surprise, given he dropped the spooky look and just looked momentarily confused. He was the first sentient ghost we'd come across, and I had no intentions of wasting the opportunity to get some useful information.

            "WHAT ARE TWO GHOST HUNTERS DOING HERE?" Box Ghost gaped, coming out of his initial stupefied response.

            "Looking for ghosts." I smirked.

            Having thought about it, I had decided I rather liked the Box Ghost, even all those years ago whenever I was trying to hunt him down along with any other spook that crossed my path. Compared to the more powerful spooks like Skulker, Box Ghost was lovably incompetent. At least he always seemed to be more of a goofy slapstick comedian than any sort of a real threat. Besides, he was a father now ( _ew!_ ) and from what little I had seen at that party, the job had treated him well.

            "WE HAVEN'T COME THROUGH YOUR NEW PORTAL-!" The ghost tried to protest, apparently assuming we were there to kick some spectral tail.

            "Nonono, not hunting ghosts, trying to find one!" I interrupted. "Do you know where Danny is? Y'know, the ghost kid who isn't a raging psycho?"

            Box Ghost got an amusing look of concentration on his face as he considered my question. While I waited, I noticed for the first time that he was by himself and that his tiny daughter wasn't with him.

            "Hey, where's your daughter?" I couldn't help but give voice to that observation.

            "Daughter?" Paulina gaped first at me, then at the ghost in front of us.

            I refrained from snickering at the look on the Latina's face. She didn't _say_ it, but I could read it clear as day on her face: _EW!_

            "SHE IS WITH THE BABYSITTER!" Box Ghost boomed, apparently remembering something. "THE SPOOKY GIRL BABYSITS HER! AND I AM LATE TO PICK HER UP!"

            Paulina and I exchanged looks. "Spooky girl?"

            "Hey, could we meet this babysitter?" Paulina addressed the spook, apparently having the same thought I did.

            Box Ghost didn't answer, but instead spun and flew off in what seemed a random direction. I glanced at Paulina again, then at the retreating spook.

            "There's only one spooky girl I could think of that would like to babysit a creepy ghost." Paulina declared. "Do we follow him?"

            "Or let this chance get away?" I quirked an eyebrow, kicking the engines on my sled into gear. "Let's move it!"

            The Box Ghost wasn't difficult to follow through the Ghost Zone. Despite his slightly more fearsome appearance, he wasn't much faster than he had been years ago. He certainly had nothing on Phantom's terrible agility and strength; and even on a bad day I was able to keep pace with _that_ spook.

            I noticed that the direction we were traveling was taking us back toward the Patrol's portal, and I quirked an eyebrow as we passed scenery that was now slightly more familiar than it had been two hours prior. If what we were after was somewhere near the portal, I swore I would kick myself for somehow not seeing it.

            We caught up with the ghost not far from the portal, actually. In fact, Box Ghost was fussing with what I had _thought_ was merely the defunct remains of the Fenton Portal. Paulina looked ready to say something when the ghost grinned at whatever he was doing, and floated back a few feet from the metallic frame.

            And then the portal whirred to life.

            "Wha-?" I gaped at the swirling blue vortex. "Shouldn't that be- I remember when the portal was destroyed!"

            "THIS IS NOT THAT PORTAL!" Box Ghost declared, diving through the portal.

            "If it's not the old portal..." Paulina frowned. "Then what is it?"

            "Got me." I admited. "I wouldn't have a clue what it is if it's not the remains of the Fentons' portal. Or where it leads. Or if it's even safe."

            Okay, so I hadn't forgotten what happened the first time I'd recklessly thrown open a door of any kind in the Ghost Zone. Even Danny had been rattled all those years ago at the sight of a demonic train engine hurtling at the two of us that one time. If this portal was just another type of door, there was no telling what was on the other side. Then again, this was apparently where the Box Ghost left his kid with a spooky babysitter. No father would leave their child somewhere dangerous, right?

            "Well, there's only one way to know for sure." Paulina glanced at the portal. "Besides, it can't be _that_ dangerous if he left his... _ew_... daughter there."

            "Like you read my mind." I mused. "Well, shall we?"

            Flying through the portal was seriously like stepping backward in time, and for just a moment I had to wonder if Clockwork was messing around as we both stopped dead on the other side, jet sleds hovering a few inches off the smooth metal floor panels. I spotted the Box Ghost disappearing up a set of strangely-familiar stairs across the room. Voices drifted down from above, and while muffled they seemed familiar.

            Paulina yelped in surprise and actually tumbled off her jet sled from stopping the device too abruptly. I couldn't blame her, it was nearly claustrophobic to be back inside four walls after two hours combing the vast expanse of the Ghost Zone. Heck, I had to fight back a few tears at the heartbreakingly familiar scene. It was a basement lab, slightly cluttered with papers and computer stuff. It was very nearly an exact duplicate of the FentonWorks basement from a decade ago.

            "This is-!" Paulina got to her feet, trying to form a coherent sentence.

            "C'mon, they've got to be upstairs." I interrupted, shutting off my jet sled and leaving my weapons. It seemed wrong to barge in fully armed.

            Paulina did likewise after a long moment and we cautiously approached the stairs. In hindsight, it made sense. If Danny was going to make a lair for himself in the Ghost Zone, why not place it near the FentonWorks portal? Why not make it like the home he had lost all those years ago? There were differences though, we quickly discovered. For one, the staircase didn't go straight up to the next floor. It coiled around itself in a tight spiral, and I'm pretty sure it flagrantly disregarded physics a few times before we got to the next floor.

            In fact, there were a _lot_ of differences that became apparent as we stepped into what looked like a kitchen. The voices were clearer now, coming from a neighboring room; though what had been a simple opening in the wall between rooms at FentonWorks was now some sort of warped, almost gothic tunnel. The kitchen itself bore a close resemblance to its long since destroyed counterpart in the real world, but with subtle differences. A great deal more black and purple in the decor, for starters.

            "Yech... who did the interior design on this place?" Paulina made a face. "I know the Fentons weren't that great at it, but this-"

            "Looks an awful lot like Sam's handiwork." I guessed, interrupting Paulina again.

            Box Ghost emerged from the tunnel connecting the rooms, smiling happily with his daughter riding piggyback and waving when she saw us. Clearly the little ghost had not yet learned anything about humans yet; she looked like any other three year old child. Well, aside from the pale blue complexion, at least.

            "THEY'RE IN THERE!" Box Ghost boomed, making me briefly wonder if the spook could ever speak in anything less than a shout.

            "In'ere!" His daughter parroted, pointing at the black tunnel.

            I just stared briefly, still distracted by my thoughts. Luckily Paulina picked up the slack.

            "Thank you for showing us the way here." The Latina told the two ghosts. "We really appreciate it."

            I shook myself out of my introspection and nodded agreement. "Yeah, thanks guys. I don't think we would have found the place without your help."

            "IT WAS NO PROBLEM!" Box Ghost declared, pausing at the staircase. "IT WAS MUCH NICER THAN BEING SCOOPED UP IN ONE OF YOUR CYLINDRICAL CONTAINERS!"

            With that, he turned and flew down the stairs with a final shout of "BEWARE!", leaving Paulina and me in what had to be Danny and Sam's lair. I glanced at the Latina and she nodded.

            "Let's go!"

            We walked down the tunnel connecting the rooms; like the staircase, it seemed to twist and invert in ways that gave me a headache trying to think about. The connecting tunnel had to be Sam's handiwork; there was no way Danny could come up with something quite so twisted.

            Apparently the Box Ghost hadn't warned anyone on the other end of the tunnel that they had guests. The two ghosts stopped short in surprise as Paulina and I emerged into the family room; black and purple and looking only slightly like the Fentons' old living room. I was a bit more prepared, having already met the ghosts at the party a few months ago. Paulina, on the other hand, stopped in the doorway, gawking. The expression was mirrored on the two ghosts, and after a moment of surprised silence, excited chatter flooded the room all at once.

            "Paulina?"

            "Danny!"

            "Valerie! What are you...." Sam flew over, glancing at me and then warily at Paulina. "...and Paulina doing here?"

            "Don't be too hard on Paulina." I whispered so the Latina wouldn't overhear. "She's done a lot for the city; she's come a long way from being just a shallow cheerleader."

            Sam didn't look entirely convinced, and I couldn't blame her as we glanced at Paulina; who had grabbed poor Danny up in a _very_ enthusiastic hug. As a ghost, Danny had gained a few more inches of height, but Paulina still stood a little taller and her reaction had him at something of a loss. I couldn't make out all of what the Latina was babbling; I think it was partly a mushy apology for snubbing Danny in high school, partly an admonishment for not telling her that he was the ghost boy a decade ago, and partly a bunch of relieved nonsense about a familiar face after everything that had happened.

            "That aside," Sam remarked dryly as Danny squirmed out of Paulina's greeting. "What _are_ you guys doing here?"

            "Looking for you guys, actually." I replied. "We're making progress with rebuilding the city, including a new ghost portal."

            "So that's what that was!" Danny yelped before looking seriously over at me. "Please tell me there weren't any... accidents... with it?"

            I laughed outright. "No, Danny. There weren't any accidents, and no new half-ghosts on the loose."

            "But Valerie did have to threaten to demote a couple of Patrol members for messing around while it was being built!" Paulina added.

            "Anyway-" I cleared my throat to get to the real reason I wanted to find the ghosts. "With tension between the Ghost Zone and the real world really low because of _him_..."

            There was no need to clarify who _he_ was. We all knew that nightmare entirely too well.

            "I'm thinking now would be a good time to explore new.... _cooperative_... possibilities."

            So far, things were looking good. I could only hope that the ideas we were pursuing would bear fruit in the near future.


	3. Urban Renewal

**Part Three: Urban Renewal**  
"We may have or lose it all  
Respect the wilderness, Respect the life  
Save the nature for your unborn child"  
_-"Respect the Wilderness" - Sonata Arctica_ **  
**

            "HQ, this is Valerie." I spoke into my comm, waving away the dust that still drifted in the stale air. "I found a way into the tunnels."

            "You aren't seriously thinking about exploring that area right now, are you?" The reply crackled through.

            "Why not? After all that work getting through that cave-in?" I countered. "Besides, that collapse was recent, there could be people down here!"

            I wiped some more of the clingy stubborn dust from my suit, shining my flashlight into the murk of the Underground. Patrol HQ wouldn't argue with me, they all knew that I wasn't stupid and that I wouldn't take such a risk without good reason.

            "You know what you're doing." HQ responded finally. "Just be careful, and get out of there if this storm breaks."

            I rolled my eyes. I knew better than to stay Underground in an un-surveyed region of the complex during an early winter storm. The tunnels could potentially flood with rainwater; or worse yet, debris could settle and bring the roof down on me. The walls could turn into muddy sludge and slowly crush the entire tunnel; or a catch basin full of water could break, and send a torrent through the tunnels of fast-moving, deadly water. There was still some time before the storm began its assault on the New City however; and if there _were_ any survivors in this particular section of the tunnels, it was imperative to get them out before the storm hit.

            "Right. I'll make some noise if anything happens." I started into the tunnels.

            As I expected, what daylight had gotten through the thick clouds overhead faded rapidly as I got further from the sinkhole that was the new entrance to that region of the Underground. What I didn't expect however was the lack of metal paneling on the walls and floor. I wasn't sure what to make of that. Maybe that tunnel had flooded before, caking the panels with mud and hiding them? Either that, or they had been pried loose by someone; perhaps to serves as walls on a makeshift shelter?

            The air was rank with the smell of wet dirt, and I knew there wasn't much time to explore. The humidity was a great deal higher than I would have expected, a thin layer of condensed moisture having soaked at least slightly into the dirt walls. Oddly enough though, something had to have been holding the muck up; I could find no evidence of any collapse.

            _Something's down here._ I repressed a shiver as I progressed. I didn't have any sort of psychic sense to tell me that; it was simple experience.

            As I progressed further down into the tunnels, the walls became stranger; I could make out a weird latticework of... something... that seemed to be holding the walls and ceiling up. Most were a dark brown or green in color, and resembled either veins of some freakish beast, or roots of some kind. Neither boded well for the Patrol or the New City. The deeper I went, the more of those weird roots there were, some looping from the ceiling, walls, and floor like a sprawl of badly installed wiring. Some were pulsing as well, making a low creaking noise that split the silence.

            It reminded me an awful lot of a generic bad monster movie, really. It _was_ still pretty spooky. Who knew what lurking monstrosities were waiting at the end of the tunnel? Ghosts, or some freakish thing created by toxins in the Outlands? I thought I saw faint light ahead, and braced myself for the worst.

            "HQ, this is Valerie." I spoke into my comm quietly. "I've confirmed something not human in the tunnels."

            "Not human?" The reply crackled through, with more static since I was below ground. "Valerie, haven't you got anything more substantial to report than just that?"

            "That's all I know!" I snapped. "It's... I'm not sure what it is, I haven't got a visual confirmation yet other than that it's spread out some sort of roots into the tunnels. If it's a ghost, it's not like anything I've seen. Just get some backup ready, I doubt it's friendly!"

            I readied my weapons as I proceeded toward the light. The air was less stale, there was a slight breeze that told me I must be near the surface again. I also caught a whiff of... greenery? That was baffling. While we were having some success introducing new plantlife to the city and the Outlands surrounding it, we were on the brink of winter! I mulled over the oddness as the tunnel slowly brightened, revealing those root-things were mostly shades of green now.

            I actually had to shove several of the thick green coils aside as the tunnel widened. Even though the daylight was reduced from the thick clouds overhead, it was blinding compared to the murk of the tunnels. I had to just _stop_ at the exit of the tunnel so my eyes could adjust to the light. Then I could only gawk.

            It was a great deal warmer than in the tunnels or outside. The high walls were crumbling mounds of debris, the only thing holding them upright a tightly woven lattice of green vines. More vines seemed to be holding a cracked but mostly intact glass dome from one of the trashed buildings over the top of the enclosure. From up in the air, the makeshift greenhouse had to be nearly invisible. That wasn't the most incredible thing about the hidden alcove in debris of the Near Outlands however.

            That great big hole in the ground, held together by plantlife, and shielded from the elements was literally carpeted in greenery. Trees, flowers, shrubbery everywhere in a nearly blinding display of vibrant greens and bursts of brilliant color. Soft grass covered the floor, practically glowing with health. Such abundance was literally _impossible_ up on the surface; the weather had cooled over the past decade. We could get stuff growing, but not to such a degree; this was nothing short of incredible, and not at all what I had expected to find.

            The only thing missing was the chirping of birds and scuttling of animals; and as I gingerly proceeded into the room, I half expected to find deer or something similarly cliché grazing. I found nothing of the sort however; the plants were positively pristine, and I couldn't find any indications that people had built the place. Which meant something _else_ had to have created this underground garden.

            "Hello?" I called into the grove, hesitant to step from the minor cover provided by the tunnel entrance. "Is anyone down here?"

            I was met by silence, which was pretty much what I expected, since I didn't see the keeper of the garden anywhere. My ghost radar was beeping softly on my belt; whatever was behind the place had to be a spook of some sort. Now if it was a reasonable ghost.... perhaps there were possibilities.

            I waited another long moment to be sure the area was clear before I started through the grove, the grass springy and resilient beneath my feet. If this sort of abundance could be achieved on a larger scale than just that relatively small underground garden, it would be a massive benefit to the city.

            I was snapped from my thoughts by a vine snaking out of the bushes and snaring my ankle. With a yelp I was hauled off my feet, momentarily helpless as I watched more vines rip up through the ground, tangling about one another, forming a nearly solid bulk of green. Red eyes glowered at me from beneath deep green vines hanging in a mockery of eyebrows, giant thorns springing from the creature as it finished emerging from the ground.

            "You fleshwalkers destroy all my children, and yet you dare set foot _here_?" A raspy voice emerged from the thing's cruel beak.

            "Children-? Wait, what are you talking about?" I mustered my wits enough respond, though my first instinct was to shoot first, and ask questions later.

            "You know perfectly well!" The plant monster growled, jostling me as the vine holding me pointed upwards, toward the dome overhead. "Such callous ruin, you murdered them all!"

            _Wait, he's talking about the wastelands?_

            "We did not!" I protested, trying to pry the vine loose. "If you'd been paying attention, ghost, you'd _know_ that it was another ghost that trashed everything!"

            "You lie, fleshwalker!" It hissed, grip tightening on my ankle. "For years you cut them down in their prime! _Years!_ I will not tolerate your kind _here_!"

            _Okay, talking **isn't** going to work._ I tapped the recall button for my jet sled, mind racing.

            "Sorry, Leafy." I snapped, aiming my gun at the vine. "But I'm not in the mood to be blamed for stuff I didn't do."

            My sled smashed through the dome overhead about the same time I fired my weapon, burning the vine clear through and making the plant ghost recoil with an angry hiss. Several more vines grabbed for me, but missed as I plummeted toward the floor. With the ease born of years of practice, I twisted around midair; landing in an expert crouch as my sled dove beneath me.

            The ghost visibly recoiled from the draft of chill air flowing into the garden from the new hole in the skylight, lashing out with a flurry of vines. I darted around several, and fragged more with my guns. I had to cringe whenever stray blasts struck the plants below. I wanted to stop the ghost, but I did want to avoid damaging the garden if it was possible.

            With an inarticulate bellow, the ghost itself lunged in my direction and I countered with an ecto-grenade to the thing's face. With a messy explosion that stank faintly of overcooked asparagus, the weapon detonated and took most of the ghost's head with it. I started to let out a cheer that died on my lips.

            With a shudder, the vines coiled back up, slowly reconstructing the head I'd just blown off. While the thing was momentarily distracted, I blasted a few more holes in the dome and raced upward toward freedom, safety, and most importantly: reinforcements.

            I heard the ghost yowl with something akin to pain as the temperature plummeted, the cold wind finally able to penetrate the now-shattered dome. It hadn't so much as flinched at its head being blown to bits, yet a change in temperature was making it cry out?

            "Valerie!" I heard Paulina's shout on the wind and over my wristband. "What happened?"

            I wheeled my sled around to join the squadron that had been sent to back me up, coming up alongside Paulina. I gestured with my gun to the wreckage below, just in time to see the enraged plant ghost burst through the remains of the dome.

            "Ew, what is that?" The Latina made a face. "Some kind of mutant salad bar?"

            "Got me. I found it tending a garden down there, and it got all ticked off." I replied, pausing to finally unwrap the length of limp vine that had remained around my ankle. "It was ranting about people killing its children or something."

            "Its children?" Paulina studied the ghost from above. "You mean like all the trees and stuff that Phantom destroyed when he leveled the city?"

            I shrugged, paying more attention to the ghost's attempts to reach the Patrol members high above. The first few raindrops spattered down, the only warning everyone had before the downpour started. I cringed. Fighting a ghost was bad enough; fighting a ghost with everything slippery with rain and the cold water soaking through my suit would be pure misery.

            "It regenerates, so we've got to hit it hard, and fast!" I lined up a shot as the ghost snarled and sent a thorny vine careening at the squad.

            The attack was wild, with little apparent thought to it; we all darted out of the whip's path, the thorny vine missing everyone by a wide margin. Everyone scattered further to evade subsequent attacks, trying to line up good shots through the thick curtain of rain that was falling. I shivered, soaked through and cold; there were going to be colds or worse on the Patrol after things were dealt with.

            "Fire!" I shouted, spotting an opening in the flailing mess of vines.

            The rain was lit brilliant red and green as ecto-weapons lashed out. It was an en masse tactic we'd first perfected for use against Phantom; lining up every weapon in the vicinity and targeting the same general spot on the ghost. It shrieked, the stink of burned plant life carrying only a short distance in the rain. The vines stopped attacking, the entire green mass started to tip over; more black now than green, with gaping holes blasted in it from our weapons.

            "That was way too easy." I remarked, looking down. "... Oh."

            What had been the ghost's secret garden was flooded completely with the presumably frigid rainwater. Given how the ghost seemed to react to the cold, the flood of water around its base had to have been crippling. On an unspoken signal, Paulina and I flew down for a closer look at the remains. We had to be sure the threat was properly handled.

            "You cannot stop Undergrowth, humans!" A tiny green sprout with red eyes snarled from amid the charred wreckage. "My children will be avenged!"

            It _was_ growing, albeit slowly.

            "If we wanted to, we could finish you off right here, ghost." I leveled my rifle at it, which did make it pause.

            Paulina raised an eyebrow, glancing around before grabbing a piece of debris that was slightly bowl-shaped. Much to my surprise, and with a great deal of indignant noise from Undergrowth; Paulina leaned over the edge of her sled, and... plucked him. Without a word, the Latina flew over to the muddy walls of the garden enclosure and scooped some of the sludge into the bowl, and unceremoniously stuck the ghost into it.

            "He could be useful." Paulina glanced over at me, ignoring Undergrowth's protests. "After all, you did want to see about cooperation with ghosts, right?"

            "I will never cooperate with filthy humans!" The ghost whined.

            Threat handled, the squad returned to headquarters. It was cold, windy, and we were all sopping wet from the downpour that had started to turn into freezing rain in places. Our captive was the subject of a great deal of speculation as we brought him in. Where would we put him? The holding chamber we had in the basement laboratory was meant for normal ghosts. We weren't sure if putting a temperature-dependant spook in the warm lab was a good idea.

            "Cease this! I will make you all pay!" The little sprout flailed now-harmless green tendrils as several Patrol members peered at Undergrowth.

            "Well, he doesn't seem to do well in the cold." I noted as we debated what to do. "If he'd calm down a little, we could probably work something out."

            "He's not going to listen to any of us though." Paulina responded, still holding the makeshift flowerpot. "Maybe he'll listen to another ghost?"

            I nodded slowly. "Sounds reasonable. I can head into the Ghost Zone and track down Sam. She's still big on the environment. But where can we put him until she gets here?"

            "We just need to keep him someplace cold, right?" Another Patroller piped in.

\---

            "Okay, so I'll pop over to Danny and Sam's lair, and see if they can help." I mused, walking over to the fridge and opening the door.

            "You will all feel my wrath!" Undergrowth yelled at me from his current position next to last night's casserole.

            I nudged his bowl aside and grabbed a couple of sodas before shutting the door on the ghost. I popped one open, and tossed the other to Paulina.

            "In the meantime, we'll make sure Undergrowth behaves." Paulina caught the can. "And try talking to him, if he'll actually _listen_."

            I walked to the door and grabbed my jet sled, calling back over my shoulder as I headed for the lab and the portal. "All right, I shouldn't be too long."

            "Good luck!" Paulina's voice called back.

            I spared the guard a quick salute as I opened the portal. It wasn't the first time I'd been into the Ghost Zone since we first fired up the new portal; it wasn't even the second. These days, there was always at least one Patrol member standing guard near the portal, even if there had only been a handful of ghostly intrusions.

            The hop from the portal to the mock-portal that was the entrance to the two ghosts' lair was a quick one. Danny had given me the access code to open the gateway so that I could come visit at any time, though I was careful not to abuse that privilege.

            In just a minute or so, I was leaning my sled against the wall of the "basement" of the lair and strolling up the twisted staircase.

            "Hey, Danny, Sam! You guys home?" I called ahead.

            Danny was in the kitchen when I got to the top of the staircase, along with Tucker. I stopped dead, not because I hadn't seen the spectral techno-geek in awhile, but because of how _different_ he looked. He still had the glasses and that goofy red beret, but the rest of his outfit was drastically altered from when I'd seen him at that spooky party. He was dressed surprisingly well, though he looked like a RenFaire and a computer store had fallen into a blender set on puree.

            "Hey, Valerie!" He looked up from the devices laid out on the table. "Hey, you alright? Y'look like you saw a ghost."

            "Or something else startling that I don't see everyday." I finished the joke, finding my voice. "What's with the threads?"

            Danny quirked an eyebrow at his friend. "You didn't invite her yet?"

            "I haven't had a chance!" Tucker protested.

            "Invite me to _what_?"

            Tucker managed to look sheepish, a dopey grin on his green face. "My... wedding. Remember that princess?"

            I very nearly fell flat on my face at that. At least I refrained from the standard issue " _EW!_ " that usually was my first reaction to hearing about ghostly relationships. "You're getting _married_?"

            "Well, yeah." Tucker grinned while Danny tried to keep from laughing. "Dora and I were working together so much during _his_ rampages and stuff. We just kinda clicked, y'know? A lot of the refugees in the Ghost Zone were living at her castle, and Sam and I were over there helping organize everything."

            "Yeah, it was Sam that talked Dora into popping the question." Danny picked up the tale, still grinning. "Because Tuck was too nervous to do it!"

            "Hey! I was going to... at some point!" Tucker protested the teasing.

            "Well, good to know you're all doing well." I remembered why I was there in the first place and tried to steer the topic back to it. "Do you guys know where Sam is? We've got a ghost problem in New Amity."

            "Ghost problem?" I had Danny's utter attention at that.

            "Relax, Danny. The Patrol spanked the ghost pretty bad. Guy calling himself Undergrowth; has a serious thing for plants." I explained in brief. "We've got him in the fridge at headquarters right now, because I think if we can talk some sense into him, we could arrange something."

            The two ghosts exchanged looks at my summary of events. "Definitely sounds like something Sam could help out with."

            "But she's out with Dora helping pick out bridesmaid dresses!"

            I raised an eyebrow at that, trying desperately to picture the goth ghost helping in any way with wedding planning. I ended up with a mental image of a very gothic wedding, full of black and purple and spooky stuff as opposed to the white and frilly pinks usually associated with wedded bliss.

            Tucker grabbed one of the gadgets on the table. "So we test out these new phones! By the way, Val, I built one for you, too."

            I accepted the device with a raised eyebrow. "Given the present company, this isn't just a phone, is it?"

            "Tuck figured out a way to make calls from the Ghost Zone to the human world." Danny grinned. "We thought it'd be a little more practical than sending somebody through the portal if something comes up."

            "Yup!" Tucker beamed, obviously pleased with his device as he punched in a number on it. "C'mon, Sam, pick up-... Hey, Sam? Yeah, Val's here, with a bit of a ghost emergency. Yeah. Mmhm. Plant ghost named Undergrowth. Yeah. They've got him stashed in the fridge and want some help getting through to him. You are? Great! Cool, we'll see you guys soon then!"

            "Are they done with the dresses already?" Danny raised an eyebrow.

            "Guess so."

            I made idle chatter with the two ghosts, mostly catching the guys up on how the city was doing. Both were surprised, but relieved to hear that Vlad was still bankrolling the reconstruction; and that he was still living in Wisconsin despite owning a small house in the new city. There were some raised eyebrows at my confirmation that Paulina was still acting as the city's mayor, and doing an impressive job of the task no less. In turn, I learned that Tucker and Dora,  his... fiancee... were trying to organize the Ghost Zone into an actual society. Apparently the main reason they were having any luck convincing the other ghosts to cooperate was the shared fear of Phantom; the common enemy that had made the spooks as weary of fighting as the city in the real world was.

            Before long, the two female ghosts arrived. Sam was clad in blacks and purples as she often was since I'd known her. Dora had changed since I has last seen the ghostly princess. Rather than a braid, her long hair was tied back in a sporty ponytail; and her old fashioned dress had been replaced with a more modern one. She still carried herself in that same formal manner though, offering a polite curtsy before floating over to embrace Tucker.

            "So what's this about a plant ghost?" Sam asked.

            I quickly filled her in on the details, and before long we were on our way back to the portal. None too soon, personally; I didn't care to sit around watching Tucker and Dora making puppy-dog eyes at each other. I was glad that he was getting on well, but still; the idea of ghostly relationships still made me cringe.

            It didn't take more than a minute or two before we came out through the Patrol's portal, and I had to roll my eyes at the sound of ecto-rifles being brought to the ready position.

            "Stand down." I told the overactive guard. "She's with me."

            "Wait.... is that-?" The guard looked at Sam more closely in disbelief. "Sam Manson?"

            "The very same. Now that we're all caught up, can we get to dealing with the crazy plant already?" Sam remarked dryly.

            We left the poor guy staring in disbelief as I showed Sam to where we had kept the spook. Paulina was still in the kitchen, with the fridge door open. From the look on her face, I could gather she'd been trying to talk to Undergrowth without much luck.

            "We're trying to _rebuild_ everything!" The Latina was shouting into the fridge. "Including trees and gardens and stuff!"

            "So you can destroy it all over again, fleshbag!" Undergrowth could be heard snarling back. "Like your kind always does!"

            "Whoa, cool it, people." Sam interjected neatly, startling Paulina aside and getting a look at the captive ghost. "So this is Undergrowth?"

            "Sam-!" Paulina yelped, surprised.

            "When I am free to regenerate, you'll pay for this!" The green spook growled.

            "Right. Y'know, I can appreciate where you're coming from, but trying to destroy all the humans isn't going to help you any." Sam addressed the ghost, plucking his makeshift bowl out of the fridge.

            I motioned to the front entrance, and we moved the conversation outside. The overhang that shaded the main entrance kept the rain off, but the air was still sufficiently cold, and the ghost was only able to slightly regenerate some of his lost mass. Instead of looking like a stray vine, at least Undergrowth now had some resemblance to a full shrub of some sort.

            "Like I said before, we didn't do _that_ -" Paulina gestured to the ruined landscape still visible in the distance. "It was a ghost named Phantom that did."

            "Then where is he?" Undergrowth demanded, still seething. "My children must not have perished in vain!"

            "Already dealt with, almost a year ago." I responded.

            "Yeah, he's gone for good and we're trying to rebuild." Paulina added.

            Undergrowth considered this for a moment before turning a beady red glare on us. "Yes, rebuild. Rebuild your _metropolis_ and continue your slaughter!"

            "If they really wanted to keep 'slaughtering' your 'children', don't you think they would have just finished you off?" Sam raised an eyebrow. "Not all humans want to destroy nature. Some of us want to protect it."

            Undergrowth didn't respond to that, looking at the beginnings of the reconstruction. It hadn't been easy, but we had taken steps to incorporate natural spaces and agriculture into the layout. Even before the shield fell, we'd ensured that there were green spaces.

            "And from what I'm told, these 'fleshbags' saved you from _this_." Sam continued, gesturing at the downpour. "Because your garden got flooded. Sounds like a real slaughter to me all right."

            I cringed. The goth ghost still had a knack for the razor wit and vicious sarcasm.

            "What are you getting at?" Undergrowth finally said, glowering at Sam.

            "What I'm getting at is simple." Sam retorted. "These guys don't _need_ your help to rebuild and undo all the damage Phantom did. Sure, it'll be tough, but they can manage. If you're trying to interfere with them, you'll be dealt with as a hostile ghost. I've seen what Valerie can do, and it wouldn't be pretty."

            "Darn right." I muttered.

            "Now, if you want at least some of your children to survive, you _need_ their help. Your garden wouldn't have lasted through the winter if this storm alone dunked it." Sam continued. "But these guys aren't trying to slaughter anybody. They want to work cooperatively. Such as rebuild a city that isn't going to hurt the environment?"

            "And I would assume you'd know best what's hurting the soil and stuff that's making it so difficult to grow anything." I chimed in. "If you could tell us what's wrong with it, we can take steps to fix it."

            "And then everybody wins." Paulina concluded. "You and your... children... prosper, the city gets some extra help rebuilding, and... we could set an example for everybody else to follow!"

            Undergrowth went quiet, considering the barrage of information. Sam's words were harsh, but it was true. We could rebuild without the green ghost's help, as we had been doing for the past several months. Things would simply be a lot easier, and better, if we could get the eco-ghost on our side.

            "It's called compromise." Sam broke into the silence with that wry sarcasm. "And I don't know about you, but I kinda like the idea of an entire city being planned and built around protecting the environment."

\---

            I came flying back into the city hub from patrol, rushed and a little late for the celebration. The winter had been long and difficult, but the season was finally turning toward spring and everybody was in high spirits as the city prepared for its first annual spring festival. From above, it seemed almost a sea of bright colors; almost as if everyone in the city was tired of the drab grey and brown of the cold season and had exploded into blossoms of brilliant, even gaudy color themselves.

            On the subject of flowers, the party's guest of honor and host towered a good twenty feet above the crowd. The thorny armor was gone though, replaced with colorful flowers and grasses in a living parody of a grass skirt. It was a sharp contrast to the beginning of winter, and there had been more than one argument about specific details; but somehow Paulina and the architects wrangled arrangements that while not perfect, were at least satisfactory to both sides.

            Vines and sturdy trees veritably cradled the newer buildings; in many cases the buildings were built specifically around the vegetation, the living wood providing the support structure for walls and floors. It was certainly unique to see from the air; the New City a giant sprawl of life in the center of the bleak wastelands left from Phantom's rampages. We still had a long way to go before we reclaimed all of the ruins, but we'd made impressive progress in the year since the ghost was defeated.

            I spiraled my sled to a landing on the platform erected near Undergrowth's new garden, offering a hasty apology to Paulina and the ghost for my tardiness. With all the major players arrived, Paulina stepped up to the microphone.

            "Thank you everyone for coming today!" Paulina began, the crowd quieting down. "I'm sure you guys all know why we're gathered here; to celebrate!"

            There was a cheer from the crowd at that; it had been far too long since anyone had celebrated anything. Besides, the weather was good; it was a bright, clear day, perfect for a party.

            "One year ago, we had nothing!" Paulina continued. She really did have a knack for public speaking. "We were living in fear, hiding from the ghost that was a plague for the past decade. Everyone lost a lot; homes, friends, family. We'll never forget them, but those of us who survived can at last believe it: _The nightmare is over!_ "

            This brought another eruption of cheering from the crowd. The nightmare had really been over for awhile now; ever since Phantom was defeated by his past self. For most of the civilians though, the past year had been exceedingly difficult and full of hardship as we began to pick up the pieces of normal life.

            Paulina held her hands up for silence, and again the crowd shushed itself so she could continue. "And now we're started a new life, a new society; one in which humans and ghosts can help each other and move past the unwarranted fear we've shared for the past ten years!"

            A lot of people had looked askance of the Patrol when we first proposed helping Undergrowth set up shop in the city hub. He was a ghost, after all, and the civilians had become well-conditioned to fear ghosts. It hadn't taken long for the plant spook to win people over though; first by recreating the garden that had been flooded before, and later by using his particular powers to speed along the building process. The New City was already being written up in architecture magazines for its 'outstanding breakthroughs in building design.'

            "So I would like to make today a citywide holiday. Both to celebrate our success, and to remember all those who were lost these past ten years." Paulina concluded.

            There was another cheer, followed by a thunderous wave of applause that rolled on and on. I felt a chill and instinctively looked skyward and spotted three floating figures far above the crowd. Grinning like an idiot, I identified the trio and waved up at them. The celebration just would not have been complete without those closest to the ten years of disaster present to share in the triumph. Danny, Sam, and Tucker, though they were all ghosts now would always be welcome through the portal.

            That's just what friends do.

**-The End-**


End file.
